Community membership implies a commitment to the domain of the community and to the shared competence that distinguishes the members from other communities.
One important aspect is that the members value their collective competence even though it might not be recognized or understood by people outside of the group. Such a commitment motivates the members to interact regularly and learn how to better perform their work together (Wenger and Wenger-Trayner 2015, 2). Cultural-organizational exchange and various collaborations have previously been important for law enforcement agencies in the EU. However, officers participating in Project Turnstone had rarely, and some even never, worked together (in the same room) with hands-on tasks. A vital issue for achieving “successful” collaboration, according to the interviewed officers, was to meet one another and perform hands-on work together.
In the first part of this chapter I describe the main context in which the officers “worked together”, namely the Power Weeks. During the Power Weeks, the officers performed everyday intelligence work similar to their daily work at their home organizations but now in the same room during a collective session. I describe various situations when the officers negotiated practices, discussed technical problems, coordinated their work methods, and resolved minor conflicts. Finding a common langue and ways of expression was an important part for the work to run smoothly. Various misunderstandings requiring clarification and agreeing on specific words and styles of reporting were vital components for establishing a sense of common ground.
The second part of this chapter focuses on the formal meetings organized during Project Turnstone. Although the officers did not regard such formal events as important for collaboration, I argue, based on the empirical material, that such meeting interactions were of importance in establishing common objectives, and eventually, a work community. Formal meetings provided opportunities to jointly discuss, negotiate, and establish the goals, structure, and activities of the project. Various symbolic artifacts (such as linguistic labels of their different activities) and material artifacts (documented reports, lists, PowerPoint presentations, and pictures) were also important for establishing an internally shared language among the participants. These helped them to coordinate their activities and strengthen the social bonds among them.
Although the officers saw administrative practices (such as documentation and project related formal meetings) as sources of frustration that hindered “real” police work, observations suggest that the use, creation, and negotiation of such practices can link people together when they collaborate on a common task (Lee 2007; Schwartzman 1987; Wenger 1998, 103-108). Documents, rules, meetings, and statistics were important for the “formalisation” processes of Project Turnstone, serving as proof of the project’s existence and the officers’ work progress. Such processes were observed during the Power Weeks as well as during the formal meetings.
The Power Weeks
Working Cases, Finding “Hits”
Members of a community of practice are not merely a group of people sharing a common interest or goal. They are practitioners who, by working or performing a shared practice together, develop a repertoire of tools, recourses, experiences, and ways of addressing recurring problems (Wenger and Wenger-Trayner 2015, 2). For the officers participating in Project Turnstone, the Power Weeks were settings where participants could share lessons of criminal intelligence and jointly define their goals and purpose of their activities.
A few weeks after Project Turnstone had been initiated I travelled to the next city where a Power Week was about to start. The plane had been delayed because of bad weather, and I did not arrive at the location of the Power Week as early as I had planned. It took me a while to locate the right building where the taxi had dropped me off, and I had to call my contact person for guidance. A few minutes later I saw a grey door open in one of the adjacent buildings, and a woman in her late forties in civilian clothes waved.
The woman let me in and told me that her name was Ania. I had never met her before and she said that she was one of the participants in this Power Week. She worked as an intelligence officer in Lithuania and was very excited about the project. When we walked upstairs to the office I asked Ania if something “exciting” had happened yet.
She smiled and said that they had just started, but that they had a few leads.
The “Power Week office” was a conference room with one large table and several small desks scattered around the room. There was plenty of space for the officers to walk around and talk to their colleagues. The first arriving officers had gathered around the large table and the latecomers took a seat at the smaller desks. Ania pointed me to a table in the right corner where I and unpacked my things (a bottle of water, snacks, my laptop, and a notepad and pencil). I looked around the room and recognised a few faces who smiled and nodded in my direction. I also recognized Filip who said hello and
introduced me to the other officers whom I had never met. They looked at me briefly, before turning their attention back to Filip.
One of the host officers asked Filip if he wanted to introduce the week by having a quick “start-up meeting”. An officer who had been standing took a seat behind one of the new Finnish participants named Jüri. Jüri’s laptops was on and he turned around and said “are you spying?” to the officer. The officer laughed and Jüri smiled. Filip seemed not to notice and greeted everyone. He began by making a joke about everyone’s tired appearance, suggesting that they had been up all-night partying without him. “I am too old for such things”, Filip said, looking specifically at an older colleague rolling his eyes. All the officers laughed and one of the participants shouted that he had been forced to drink all night to drown his sorrows in order to “survive”
this Power Week. Filip smiled, cleared his throat and said “let’s begin”.
Filip informed everyone that a few “expensive” cars had been stolen in Stockholm the previous evening and had later been spotted somewhere in the harbour area. A surveillance team was organized to search for the cars and the suspects. He also mentioned a few other cases that he described as having high priority and asked if anyone in the room had any information about them. The officers took notes as they were checking their information systems and phoning colleagues in harbour areas. Since no one had any questions to ask the meeting was quickly over. The officers turned their attention towards their laptops or phones. The officers suddenly looked frustrated that the internet connection was bad; they often lost the connection and had to restart their laptops several times. A service guy was called in and managed to fix the problem temporarily.
The officers worked for a couple of hours by researching cases and recent thefts that took place in the area and in other cities. A female officer listed every case and related important information in an excel document. I was also told, by another officer, that she listed suspects of border related crimes that had recently been committed and the outcome of surveillance. The officers referred to every piece of information, such as for example, a link between two suspects from two separate cases, as a “hit”. A “hit” was further described to me as an apprehended suspect, a person who might become the objects of surveillance or some other important piece of information regarding criminal activity. For example, officers in Lithuanian might apprehend suspects in the harbour area. If the suspects had Estonian passports or identification, the Lithuanian officers would call their colleagues in Estonia and ask if there was any information about the suspects in the Estonian registers. If the Estonian officers found information saying that the suspects were wanted regarding a previous crime, that finding would be described as a “hit”.
Another example of a “hit” might be a stolen car that was located in a harbour area by border officers. If such a “hit” was located, the officer with the most appropriate contacts (for instance contacts in the country where the suspect was located) would call
and ask the surveillance teams if they had the staff or recourses to pursue the car or the suspect43. I heard Ania talk to Filip about a few suspects who had been spotted in the harbour area, probably on their way to Sweden to pick up “women or drugs”, and that they should send requests for surveillance.
I went to bathroom, and when I came back, the officers cheered and laughed.
Apparently, Jüri had been able to link pieces of information because of his unrestricted access to several search engines. One officer tapped Jüri gently on his shoulder calling him the “key man”, the man who “unlocks” information. Another officer disagreed, saying: “no, Jüri is the hit-man”, referring to Jüri’s ability to find information, or “hits”.
He then shaped his hand in the form of a gun, jokingly “firing it” in front of him. This gesture suggested that he jokingly referenced a hit-man meaning a “hired killer”. The other officers in the room quickly joined the joke and some walked up to Jüri, standing behind his laptop asking him to show them how he worked. A while later, I heard two officers talk about a member of staff at the police academy who had been kidnapped by her husband in a Saab. All officers working in the city were searching for that car, one of them said. To my surprise, no one else in the group commented on this issue.
Lunch was planned at three o’clock at a restaurant nearby. As we left for the restaurant, one of officers had another problem with his laptop and stayed behind. When asked if he would be ok without a lunch break, he claimed that it was more important to fix the laptop, as he could not do anything useful without it. During lunch, I sat next to Ania and a few other officers whom I had met before. One of the officers was frustrated that the host chiefs had not yet been present, and that there were several technical problems that had not been solved. He also said that some of the local officers frequently tried to organize “cultural trips” around the city, instead of working. Ania looked at me and said: “everyone here means well, it must be a cultural difference”.
After lunch, the chief of the department waited for us in the Power Week room. He greeted everyone and complimented them for their hard work. He said that he was very happy to see that everyone worked so hard and looked so dedicated. He announced that they all deserved a short break, and that he wanted to give all the participants a guided tour of the building. Most of the officers (and me) readily followed him. The chief showed us around the main highlights of building, such as the command centre, detention centre, interrogation rooms, and the exercise yard on the roof (allocated to suspects held in custody). He walked in to one of the exercise areas and saying that it was important that their “customers could get some air, adding “it’s EU regulation!”. I asked the chief if he always referred to the people held in custody as “customers”, and
43 Other officers (not taking part in the Power Weeks) might also find or apprehend suspects without having contact with the Power Week team. For instance, a couple of times, street patrol or traffic offence officers apprehended suspects who acted suspiciously or had committed a minor traffic offence. Sometimes, those suspects were found to be in possession of stolen goods connected to cases worked on by the Power Week group. The officers participating in the Power Weeks were thereby informed about these events.
he answered: “sometimes, and at other times we just call them bad guys or crooks [laughing]”.
After finishing the tour, the chief led us back to the Power Week office room. One of the officers immediately announced that there was exciting news; a surveillance team in Stockholm had followed a car from Lithuania with passengers suspected of scouting various leisure boat harbours in order to plan break-ins. The driver of the car was wanted for thefts and smuggling. Filip, who had participated in the tour, rushed to his laptop. He seemed very agitated and complained that it took too much time to log in.
A coast guard officer had been on the phone with a few colleagues and announced that they could use an airplane in order to conduct surveillance. Filip seemed surprised and asked how often they used that plane. “The plane is in use eight hours a day”, the coast guard officers said. Another officer was fascinated that they had access to a plane, and Filip said “get the plane up in the air!”. The coast guard officer called someone on his cell-phone and left the room. We could hear him talking in the corridor about the plane.
For a while, we heard nothing more about the ongoing surveillance. The officers talked with one another in various languages. Occasionally, they asked questions, answered telephone calls or shared information regarding recently committed crimes. Most crimes mentioned by the officers during that afternoon were drug related, concerned property thefts or illegal immigration. Occasionally during the day, the officers took short coffee breaks or stood by the large windows admiring the city view.
The work continued for a few hours, often in silence. Marcus, from Sweden suddenly said that a cargo boat from Russia had arrived in a harbour with a dead sailor on board.
No one seemed to notice his comment and two other officers continued their conversation in Latvian. One of the coast guard officers suddenly received a telephone call about the on-going surveillance. He seemed very disappointed when he announced to everyone that the weather was too bad for conducting surveillance with the airplane.
“Seeing pictures on a live-stream video of the airplane surveillance would have been a better show”, he said, looking frustrated. Jüri announced that his colleagues in Helsinki had arrested three people based on information from the Turnstone office. Marcus responded: “great, now you are in the lead with three zero”. I asked the officers sitting close to me if this was a competition, instead of a collaboration? Everyone who heard my question laughed.
In the evening, the officers started yawning and took several short coffee breaks. Because some officers had taken early morning flights to make it to the Power Week, they had woken early in the morning and their eyes were now blood shot, looking tired.
Although complaining of being tired, the officers often joked and laughed, and seemed to experience the work atmosphere as relaxed and informal. One officer played a game on his cell phone, and another one showed two of his colleagues three short satirical clips on YouTube that made fun of border controls and border crossings. In one of the
clips, a woman faked a pregnancy and birth labours in order to cross the border. The officers laughed a little at the films. However, they soon recovered their serious attitude whenever there were some technical problems or an important request or message about criminal activity. Soon, one of the host officers said that it was time to call it a day, and we all headed back to the hotel to have dinner.
The next morning when I arrived at the office a few officers had already started working.
They all seemed excited telling me that they had managed to link several suspects to the same case by comparing information from their separate information systems. One of them exclaimed “now it’s starting to be fun!”. During the next few days, the officers worked with sending and receiving information regarding various cases, for instance regarding stolen cars, stolen bicycles, tools that had been stolen from work sites, and several apartment break-ins perceived to be cross-border related. Similar to subsequent Power Weeks, a number of surveillance and a few arrests were made. In contrast to the very first day, the officers talked more with one another and seemed more comfortable with sharing information.
During a coffee break I had a conversation with Dima about his thoughts regarding the Power Weeks. Dima asked me if I remember that he had told me about a case of smuggled Diesel that he had worked with last year. Thanks to the Power Week, he said, he now knew who the smugglers were and the name of their company. Dima seemed very excited about this, saying that he was eager to continue working with the Power Week team, continue to investigate this case, and hopefully, catch the suspect.
Hands-on work?
During the Power Weeks, the officers often looked intent on taking every opportunity to learn from one another’s’ experiences of cross border crimes in the Baltic Sea area.
Most of their collaborative work carried out during the Power Weeks consisted of discussions and questions about committed crimes and suspected cross-border criminals. The officers focused on crimes that had been committed recently or during the Power Week.
One such case concerned several expensive cars that were stolen one early morning in Stockholm. The Swedish officers received information about the case in the morning and immediately informed the other participants regarding the night’s events. When hearing about this case the officers started to assemble all the information that they had and then compared their knowledge of active car thieves who operated in the area. They received information about the theft from colleagues over the phone or via emails. They neatly documented all the information that they had about the thefts in lists or graphs (such as what kind of cars were stolen, possible origin of the cars, the time it had taken for the thieves to steal the cars, as well as any information they might have about previous convicted or suspected car thieves. I learned that it was difficult to steal new cars and that car thefts became more and more sophisticated. The officers agreed
amongst one another that such criminals were highly organized and very skilful, as a successful car theft required a “small army” of technicians.
For a few hours the Power Week office brimmed with activity. As the cars had been stolen less than a kilometre from the harbour area, the officers thought it likely that the suspects would try to ship the cars on one of the departing morning ferries. By the time they had reached their colleagues in the harbour the ferries had already left. The destinations of the ferries were Helsinki, Tallinn, and Riga. The officers from Finland, Estonia and Latvia all contacted their respective colleagues informing them to keep a look out for the cars. As the ferries arrived the next day, border officers were prepared in all harbours to search for the cars. To the great disappointment of the Power Week officers, none of the cars were found. They started to discuss alternative routes, thinking that the thieves had become more careful and chosen to drive the cars from Sweden to Finland, and continuing south. The officers suspected that the thieves originated from Lithuania or Belarus (but I did not fully understand how they came to this conclusion).
The cars were not found that week and the officers did not talk about this case before the next Power Week, about a month later. Apparently, two police officers in Estonia had arrested a person for excess of speed and drunk driving. The Power Week officers had sent information regarding the stolen cars which the traffic offence officers had recognised. The suspect was driving one of the stolen cars with a fake registration number plate. This arrest eventually led to information regarding the other car thieves as well.
When this news reached the Power Week office, the officers cheered and congratulated each other. One of the officers declared that this case would hardly have been noticed if the Power Week officer had not been able to send information quickly to all countries in the Baltic Sea area. This is one example of a case that the officers regarded as being successfully solved. According to the officers, they owed their success to the quick work pace of the officers as they were gathered in the same room without the need to call or email anyone trying to find “the right person” to contact. They just had to ask the person sitting next to them. There were several other incidents when the officers focused on various cases of the smuggling of narcotics, cigarettes or stolen goods where no substantial findings were made. Similar procedures to the above-mentioned case were then carried out.
According to Dima, and most other project participants, the Power Weeks were, in many ways successful; the officers worked together side by side sharing knowledge and experiences. Relationships were created, hands-on border work was carried out and work contacts were established for future collaboration. “For example,” Dima said, “I was happy to solve a curious case that I have been working on for months”. Dima and his colleagues had on several occasions spotted a group of men leaving the harbour in a small motorboat with what appeared to be fishing equipment. The men would always come back a few hours later without any fish. The boat and the men had been searched